Aruba, December 10, 2014 - For the first time in decades, the U.S. is no longer the largest economy in the world, and China has become number one, the International Monetary Fund says.

The IMF recently released the latest numbers for the world economy, stating that China will produce $17.6 trillion in terms of goods and services-- compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.

Just 14 years ago, the U.S. produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese, Dow Jones’ MarketWatch reported.

But each country reports its data in its own currency, according to the IMF website. In order to compare data, each country's statistics must be converted into a common currency. But there are several ways to manage that conversion and each can result in very different answers.

Another measure of an economy’s strength is its “purchasing power parity” or PPP—the rate at which the currency of one country would have to be converted into that of another country to buy the same amount of goods and services in each country.

China now accounts for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in real PPP terms, compared with 16.3% for the U.S.

Experts have predicted China’s economy would surpass America’s for years and recent conventional wisdom anticipated the change this year. China’s economy may now be the world’s largest, but it’s still not the richest. GDP per head is still less than a quarter of U.S. levels, the Financial Times reported.